Microsoft .NET for COBOL Programmers

Rating:
Summary: 23 Hours of Video Tutorials
Review: COBOL is still the dominant mainframe production language and new applications continue to be created using it. It was therefore with a great deal of anticipation that I started Howard Hinman's rewarding series of tutorials for COBOL using Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET development environment. Fujitsu offers a trial version of .netCOBOL for download from their Web site ... and Microsoft also offers a download of the trial version of VisualStudio.NET. Prior to starting this excellent set of tutorials, I installed both the trial versions of netCOBOL and Visual Studio.NET. Although neither are necessary for you to view and benefit from the netCOBOL videos, being able to recreate Howard's examples on your machine will significantly increase your understanding of netCOBOL when you can see that the examples that he presents really do work. Too many times I have attempted to create and run application examples from "How To" texts only to have them inexplicably fail. Howard's narratives follow his step-by-step examples completely and accurately. If you have programmed in COBOL before but have not yet used either Visual Studio.NET or the .NET framework, you will be pleased to see that no previous knowledge of either is required or assumed. I found nothing to complain about while completing the nine lessons and the entire experience was pleasurable and rewarding. My operating system is Windows XP Professsional, which I installed only because the use of IIS, which neither Windows 98 or XP Home Edition includes, is recommended. The tutorials run on Windows Media Player and the video and audio presentations are excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Training Video on Target
Review: This training video is superb.

The level of detail is almost always on target. Each new section begins with a broader perspective and then narrows down to repeatable lessons that bring home the concepts. Howard almost always starts with a blank project so every detail is covered; there are no mysteries left over.

I think this is the most effective video training I have ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: Training Video on Target
Review: This training video is superb.

The level of detail is almost always on target. Each new section begins with a broader perspective and then narrows down to repeatable lessons that bring home the concepts. Howard almost always starts with a blank project so every detail is covered; there are no mysteries left over.

I think this is the most effective video training I have ever seen.

Rating:
Summary: Congratulations
Review: With this email I would like to express my opinion about your two NetCOBOL CD's called Microsoft .NET for COBOL Programmers.

First, a brief description about my professional background:

I have 15 years of COBOL programming experience on different mainframe platforms.
I have been working with Fujitsu Consulting for 5+ years.
I have taken numerous courses in VB, Java, UML, Web Development using VB, and lately several .NET events, presentations or conferences.

My next project is not going to use mainframe but Microsoft .NET, particularly ASP .NET and VB.NET.

Now about your CD's:

These were the best educational CD's I have ever taken.

Because of my knowledge of Microsoft .NET and VB, and my long experience with COBOL, your CD's were easy to follow. I noticed that NetCOBOL has a lot of similarities with VB, which made it easier to understand OO NetCOBOL.. It helped me very much to understand .NET and VB features which were not quite clear to me until now.

Your CD's are very much like a live classroom setting, and even better because you can repeat parts if you want to see or hear again. Windows Media Audio/Video Player was probably the best technology to use for these lessons. It made them dynamic and not boring. Other educational CD's, like Computer Based Training CD's, are without voice and motion and thus were too static and boring. Your CD's are very detailed and thoroughly done, showing each detail, each step, and each cursor movement.

I especially liked the fact that Howard was creating most of the projects from scratch. On other CD's projects or programs are already created and you don't see start to finish how to do it. They usually just show some parts or creating small parts from already created entity.

I also enjoyed trying to create same projects on my own in my Visual Studio .NET environment. I had small challenging problems, because of some differences between my installed production version of NetCOBOL and the one that Howard was using. But I was able to resolve them quickly and it just added value to my learning process.

I am very excited about the possibility to work in the near future on some projects using NetCOBOL.
But I am also a little cautious and ready to expect more challenges when using it in the real world. The real world COBOL programs and mainframe environments can be much more complicated than the examples presented.

Again, congratulations for excellent CD's.